Is a change beginning to happen regarding schools?

[Covidfears]

I’ve been noticing more articles lately in the mainstream press about the difficulties in schools (which will come as no surprise to most people). There’s also been some research which has basically confirmed that schools are driving infections. So, along with it looking like this lockdown has been a waste of time (due to schools being kept open to continue the spread) and people in power calling for Hull schools to be closed do we think that schools will be closing early for Christmas?

Is there any chance that blended learning or rotas will be coming in after the Christmas holidays?

We are a vulnerable family with children in primary school and the risk that sending them every day with no safety measures poses to our family is causing me huge amounts of stress.

I repeat : adding a week in the summer does nothing to help the exam years.

@Piggywaspushed

Yes, that was what I was saying grenadines. Giving remote learning in the week before the Christmas holiday seems a real chore to me, for all concerned. it should be a joyous time, not one with yet more work to do. It's a kind of busy work. I don't think it will happen, anyway. Government's current position is school at all costs.

I agree. The final week is about having fun together. The children deserve that.

@Piggywaspushed I agree that adding a week in summer is useless for exam years and I have a DD in an exam year.
I don't mind if schools continue to the end of term. I just meant that I would rather have a week of remote learning than a longer Christmas holiday and shorter summer holiday.

I have over 50 students doing Level 3 BTEC exams starting in the 11th Jan, with Health students (I think we have 60 of them) starting on the 6th, considering they have all missed 2 weeks, and then we also had 2 groups of close contacts out what are we supposed to do with schools close early?

They have left it too late to bring in any kind of helpful mitigations and have truly fucked our students over.

We are very quickly approaching 100 positive students in my school now. I can't believe we have been allowed to get to this point.

Quick question @Whyarewehardofthinking , I also work in a secondary school and have no idea how many pupils have covid. Teachers are told if a pupil is testing positive and how many pupils are sent home to self isolate, but we are not told if any of the pupils who are self isolating later become ill. So we have no idea how many pupils have it in total. Does your HT tell you now many kids have had it?

Problem in my school is that there are may rumours but we don't know the facts. We don't even know how many teachers have had it, as it's confidential obviously but some teachers have been asked to self isolate and some have been ill, but we are not told.

No teacher has been asked to self isolate after teaching a pupil that later on tested positive. Is this normal?

90 pupils. It’s a village primary. DD goes to a secondary with 1000’s and they’ve had 3 cases.

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

It isn't just the technology though - its a completely different of teaching.

Surely that is something that schools should be addressing through CPD on the training days? I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't kept up to date with my career development due to changes in technology that I wasn't trained on so I'd be asking my employer to provide training when having the annual performance reviews.

Surely the teacher standards have a clause requiring teachers to keep their skills up to date with changing methods of teaching? I can't imagine a teacher in a classroom with a visualiser, white board, ipads and associated technology who wasn't up to speed with using them.

We don't have any of those items in our school, so when you're doing remote teaching, it's just with whatever tech you have at home. We won't be able to do live lessons if we're in school teaching too.

[quote monkeytennis97]@sophandbridge he can teach his lessons live in the classroom with the technology he is used to (subject specific technology) with no problems and has repeatedly been outstanding in Ofsted and in school PM, teaching in a hybrid manner is TOTALLY new. During lockdown he taught live lessons but didn't have to teach half class in and half class out at that time. [/quote]
That must be really tough to do that and I sympathise, that's not so much a technology issue as a completely different teaching style and it must be awful to have to do. The PP I was replying to was saying about their husband not having technology in his skill set which is an entirely different issue which I was talking about.

Hats off to teachers who are teaching remotely and making the best of a shit situation.

A lack of technology skills isn't something I see the teacher as responsible for BTW, it's something that schools need to be able to address via CPD. Assuming they have the cash of course.

And the actual technology in the first place There is a massive disparity in funding/resources across the UK which is only now seeming to be noticed.

I can't imagine a teacher in a classroom with a visualiser, white board, ipads and associated technology who wasn't up to speed with using them.

Blimey. Do you think these are common in classrooms??

If someone has been in the same school for years doing what they do, perfectly adequately, it will not have been a CD priority to tinker around the edges learning how to, say, use a visualiser. Now that it might be a priority , people are too rushed,and CPD is virtual (ironically very bad for teaching people how to use technology!). I have a visualiser in my classroom, gathering dust. It doesn't make my teaching better and often doesn't work.

@sophandbridge that was my quote that you were replying to. There's technology which he uses day to day for his subject and there's new technology and kids in the class at the same time. Whole different ball game. Fwiw he is an old school teacher who has only recently made a PowerPoint lol! (He prides himself on being a teacher who could do the job even if the internet shut down.... some would really struggle!!).

@QueenBlueberries we tell all staff about any positive cases and about those in the process of being tested (if parents actually tell us). We have as several actual outbreaks with those isolating testing positive after contact with the original positive. We have had more than 15 families send in kids whilst waiting for results for either a member of the household or even the student themselves).

Staff do isolate if they have been within 2m because we accept they can't be 2m from the students; many classrooms don't allow it due to small rooms and some classes up to 34. Some of our A level are 24 in even smaller rooms.

As a school we are doing everything humanly possible, short of moving to a rota system.

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-coronavirus-schools-roulette-wheel-covid-hotspot-teachers

TES article about how teachers in Hull feel scared, how behaviour in pupils is deteriorating etc. (posted also on the other school thread)

It's quite a harrowing read. I don't believe it is good for children's mental health to be in that situation - where the adults are stressed and in fear and clearly being treated very badly. Where they have 5 out of 6 classes with supply.

Behaviour is deteriorating.

@IloveJKRowling

I wonder if there would be any scope for longer days in schools if there were a 'summer catch up'. Lots of countries have longer holidays and longer school days as standard.

Teachers would need to be compensated for this of course, it would require extra money. Since never ever giving an extra penny to schools seems to be the hill this government wants to die on (along with not funding food for kids forced into poverty by their policies) it seems unlikely.

It would be of benefit in terms of childcare - less need for wraparound care - and would mean the amount of weeks needed to catch up shorter so would mean less holiday missed (good for holiday sector and people who want a holiday).

If we were really being radical we could recruit more support staff to support teachers as well as give them a pay rise for the extra work. Maybe reduce administrative burdens on them for a bit too?

Whilst I know you have good intentions, there is no way that I would have the energy for a longer day - even with pay. Teachers at my school are shattered; we are effectively planning for twice the number of lessons and plans are having to change from day to day.

And not only that, but kids are shattered. There is so much pressure on them to make the most of the time that they have in school WHEN they're in, that they are creased by the end if the day.

Best will in the world, support staff cannot plan my lessons and deliver revision sessions - I do not need administrative support at the moment.

And I do not want to work in the summer holidays in order to clear up the mess made ty the government.

The issues with schools needs dealing with now and not retrospectively.

No. The data is clear. Schools are not super spreaders. Good news!

The Scottish Government made this clear on Wednesday.

😂😂 You've jumped on here.

Is it not allowed?

Explain the Y7-Y11 graph Would.

This is for England.

All doom. Obviously

Never mind the children. Shut the schools ASAP. You’ve convinced me

I don’t want the schools closed.

I'd be in favour of schools closing a week early. Our small town primary now has 5 classes out isolating.
If kids get sent to isolate in the final week of term, that means they'll be isolating ovee Christmas, which would be a pretty crappy end to the year.
Like 'we have to have a lockdown to save Christmas, but you can't have Christmas with family anyway because half the schoolkids in the country are isolating'.
Breaking up a week early lessens that risk massively.

@WouldBeGood

Never mind the children. Shut the schools ASAP. You’ve convinced me

Weirdly maybe, teachers are thinking of the children in wanting better mitigations to suppress transmission in schools. Whodathunkit?